After my own run-in with KLM's inflight entertainment system I became a little more sensitized to the subject, and noticed I am not the only one having trouble. Seth Godin points out this glitch in Air Canada's entertainment system:

[It] remembers the volume that the person before you used. Which means that mine was set for 11. Several agonizing seconds later, I was able to rip off the headphones.

Indeed, designing for use by multiple users takes a different set of requirements. This message apparently is lost on Air Canada's execs, who hear about the issue via a reader of Godin's blog but fail to see the point. As the reader reports:

They are still having a debate on this (45 minutes later), deciding if they should put this into the update/rev plan. One guy actually said, "who puts on a headset without check volume first?"

(Photo above: Virgin America's inflight entertainment system 'Red'. Virgin also features what every airline should have: a 110 V power supply in your seat - hurray!)

[Via: Etre]